“Heroic Labs’ APIs are easy to use and very robust .”

– James King (CEO, UpDownLeftRight)

LONDON — Nov. 18, 2015 — Heroic Labs is pleased to announce the rollout of a major new feature — Shared Storage — for its popular cross-platform API. Shared Storage makes it easy for developers to leverage user-generated content such as maps and armies — and effortlessly add advanced social features such as guilds and tournaments to their titles.

Users can create any number of JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) objects to be found and retrieved by simple Shared Storage queries. There is no limit on the number of JSON objects users can create; however, each object is limited to 8KB of JSON data.

Public / Protected Objects

Objects in Shared Storage can only be modified by the users who created them, but objects can be entered into two categories: public and protected. Those labeled “public” can be written by the game client and are available and searchable to every user in the game; these objects can range from a user’s profile information to those high scores used for bragging rights. “Protected” objects are only writable via Heroic Labs’ proprietary Cloud Code and cannot be modified via the game client. Great use cases include information about a player’s army or division / placement in a tournament.

Queries / Query Syntax

The bread and butter of Shared Storage, the query engine allows users to search all shared objects within a game — both public and private. The flexible, Lucene-inspired language offers complex filtering and ruling conditions as simple queries. Up to 100 results are returned in a single query. For greater control, query syntax has been implemented to further deepen the query engine’s power. Developers can sort query requests in four ways:

Basic Matches (find all objects with the word “Bob” in their name)

Numeric Matches (find objects with timestamps, integers, and more)

Filter Key (find objects labeled with the same key — such as all objects labeled with “progress”)

Sort Order (return results in a specified order, such as last time accessed)

Pagination (queries can return up to 100 results per request, so users can paginate in order to increase control of results)

“We understand developers’ pain points intimately because Heroic Labs actually started as an indie developer,” says Chris Molozian, CEO of Heroic Labs. “We wanted to add all these really cool social features to our game through existing game services and infrastructure — but surprisingly, there wasn’t anything like that out there. So we built it ourselves.”

“True story,” adds Mo Firouz, COO of Heroic Labs. “Creating this incredibly useful API was so gratifying that we realized other developers could benefit from it as well. So we left our game unfinished and focused all of our efforts on the technology. We hope to bring Heroic Labs’ API to every game studio — whether large or small, focused on mobile, console, Steam, or VR.”

Founded in 2015, Heroic Labs’ goal is help developers build beautiful social and multiplayer games that work at a massive scale. To learn more about Heroic Labs and Shared Storage, please visit https://heroiclabs.com

LONDON — Dec. 10, 2015 — Heroic Labs and UpDownLeftRight (UDLR) have entered a partnership to radically change the way kids play (and pay) for in-game content. The integration of Heroic Labs’ cross-platform APIs with UDLR’s advanced wearable activity trackers will lead the charge toward a more active, healthy future for gamers everywhere.

According to the ‘Trust for America’s Health’ Annual Report (2007), over 45% of US 12-17 year olds spend more than two hours per day glued to a screen — and more than 1 in 7 children are overweight. With AB, the upcoming wristband developed by UDLR, the days of spending hours on the couch are over. Everyday activities such as walking, running, jumping, and throwing become activity points that can be used to unlock special in-game items and/or currency. More than an incentive to exercise, UDLR’s platform will also allow developers to ethically monetize under-18 players — and help parents teach kids how to manage their in-game finances through a regular allowance (“top ups”).

Game studios and other UDLR partners will be able to easily integrate Heroic Labs’ API and hardware extensions into their titles; they will also receive free devkits and early access to the official Software Development Kit (SDK). Naturally, UDLR partners will also be able to host their games on Heroic Labs’ proven scalable infrastructure — expertly blending multiplayer gameplay and/or social features with UDLR’s activity-driven input.

“Working with UpDownLeftRight has been fantastic,” says Chris Molozian, CEO of Heroic Labs. “UpDownLeftRight’s next-generation wristband will get kids off the couch and into the action through measurable, crucially important physical exercise. We’re thrilled that Heroic Lab’s advanced cross-platform API was chosen to bring additional features to such an important product to market. ”

“Heroic Labs’ APIs are easy to use and very robust — not only handling parts of our wearable’s backend in games that run on their platform, but also powering the UpDownLeftRight-specific features in compatible titles that utilize Heroic Labs’ unique APIs,” says James King, CEO of UpDownLeftRight. “We couldn’t wish for a more knowledgeable and capable partner.”

About UpDownLeftRightUpDownLeftRight (formerly PowaBand) is a wearable gaming and payment platform that allows game developers, studios and publishers to integrate and create amazing mobile and console games powered by kids’ activities. UpDownLeftRight also makes it possible for developers to monetize the under-18 market via a value-store, permission-driven approach to IAPs — changing the way young people play and pay. To learn more about UpDownLeftRight, please visit http://www.updownleftright.com

About Heroic Labs

Heroic Labs’ goal is to help developers build beautiful social and multiplayer games that work at a massive scale. Based in London, Heroic Labs was founded in 2015 by Chris Molozian (CEO), Mo Firouz (COO), and Andrei Mihu (CTO) — engineers with specialist expertise in scalable, distributed infrastructure. Prior to founding Heroic Labs, the team worked on analytics, mobile APIs, and distributed database technology used by game studios such as Riot Games and Rovio Entertainment. To learn more about Heroic Labs, please visit https://heroiclabs.com

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